While analysts expected that the technical problems with iPhone 4 antennas would have a profound impact on Apple's sales, the real problem impacting Apple's bottom line is its exclusivity with AT&T. At least, that's what a survey released on Wednesday by Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster concludes.

Munster and his team interviewed 258 cell phone users in Minneapolis to gauge the impact of the iPhone 4's signal problems related to the antenna. Munster claims that surveyors never directly asked respondents about Verizon Wireless, but the subject came up anyway.

Approximately 177 respondents (69 percent) said they were aware of iPhone 4's problems related to faulty antennas. Of those who knew, 20 percent said that it affected their decision to purchase.

Munster said that, for every one respondent that acknowledged the antenna issue, three complained about the iPhone not being available through Verizon. Munster concluded that the "lack of an iPhone on Verizon is holding sales back by about three times more than the antenna issue."

Here's how Munster comes to this conclusion:

"In order to quantify a worst-case scenario, we estimate that 40 percent of all iPhone sales are domestic (was 38 percent in the June quarter). We are modeling for Apple to sell 11m iPhones in the Sept. quarter, implying about 4.4m domestic sales. If Apple lost 20 percent of those sales, or 880k units, it would reduce our EPS estimate in the quarter by $0.11, from $3.72 to $3.61.:

Despite this Apple is still doing very well with the iPhone 4, but Munster's point is that the company could be doing a lot better if it would just hash out a deal with Verizon. Source: CNN Money

Comments

With Google's Android os being used on multiple smarts phone today across different cell phone network it would only make since for Apple to expand there iPhone to to other network's like Verizon and T-moble. After all AT&T haven't been doing a good job with the iPhone in my opinion anyways.

I don't think iPhone exclusivity is helping AT&T nearly as much as it was now that Droids have become popular. Few people are going to think the benefits of an iPhone instead of a Droid are greater than the difference between Verizon and AT&T coverage and contracts.

But the exclusivity deal is probably stopping current iPhone users from switching providers.

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ZippyDSMlee: .....win8 hates any left over hidden install partitions from other version of windows....only waste 5 hours finding that out...its ahrder than you think keeping up with 4 or 5 HDDS......03/03/2015 - 4:44am

Matthew Wilson: I am going to pax east, any games you guys want me to check out?03/02/2015 - 11:23pm

ZippyDSMlee: No one remembers the days of Cinemagic and Cynergy eh? :P, meh even MGS is getting to film like....03/02/2015 - 8:44pm

MechaTama31: I was about to get all defensive about liking Metal Gear Solid, but then I saw that he was talking about "cinematic" as a euphemism for "crappy framerate".03/02/2015 - 8:29pm

prh99: Just replace cinematic with the appropriate synonym for poo and you'll have gist of any press release.03/02/2015 - 5:34pm

Monte: Though from a business side, i would agree with the article. While it would be smarter for developers to slow down, you can't expect EA, Activision or ubisoft to do something like that. Nintnedo's gotta get the third party back.02/28/2015 - 4:36pm

Monte: Though it does also help that nintendo's more colorful style is a lot less reliant on graphics than more realistic games. Wind Waker is over 10 years old and still looks good for its age.02/28/2015 - 4:33pm

Monte: With the Wii, nintnedo had the right idea. Hold back on shiny graphics and focus on the gameplay experience. Unfortunatly everyone else keeps pushing for newer graphics and it matters less and less each generation. I can barely notice the difference02/28/2015 - 4:29pm

Monte: ON third party developers; i kinda think they should slow down to nintendo's pace. They bemoan the rising costs of AAA gaming, but then constantly push for the best graphics which is makes up a lot of those costs. Be easier to afford if they held back02/28/2015 - 4:27pm

Matthew Wilson: http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2015/02/28/the-world-is-nintendos-if-only-theyd-take-it/ I think this is a interesting op-ed, but yeah it kind of is stating the obvious.02/28/2015 - 2:52pm